Farm Work

Today I've gone riding, tied up the calves, dragged the arena, and helped fix the holiday trailer. Riding went well, My horse was fine, I just walked her around the arena a bit and jogged a little. I also tied up the calves and washed the heifers again. The heifer I'm showing has calmed down a lot and I think she will do fine in the show. The bulls still need a little bit more work.

Before I went riding I drug the arena. I hooked up the arena groomer to the quad and drug it around the arena. This gets rid of all the hoof prints and imperfections in the sand. Then we watered down the arena so that it wasn't so dusty.

In preparation for the show we had to get the holiday trailer ready. The slide-out wasn't working and we had to work with the batteries and charge them in order to get it to work. It finally did and now we just have a few more things we have to do to prepare it for the show. We will be camping up by the show ground during the show so we have to get it ready.

Other than that nothing much else is going on. I'll keep you posted.

-JT

Preg Check

Yesterday we washed the two bull calves we're taking to the summer show. They did well and it calmed them down a lot. Then we blew them off and clipped them so they looked nice and spiffy. Today we did the same thing with our heifer calves and now they're all nice and clean and ready for the show. When we clip the calves we take a pair of clippers and  basically try to make them look longer, wider, and more square. I mostly had to clip their shoulders, back, underbelly and tail. We usually do something called "rat-tailing" this is when you shave the middle of the tail down a lot so the calf looks wider.

Also today we preg-checked our cows. This is when we take an ultrasound machine and check to see if the cow is pregnant. It went fairly well except for one cow got caught in the chute by the hips and we had to push her back out the side. She didn't enjoy that very much. 

We have a water trough out in our field that supplies water to our cows, the other day we noticed that it wasn't full. The water trough depends on our dugout as a water source. It turns out the pump had drained the water on top and was now sitting on the shore of the dugout. It wouldn't reach it anymore so we had to go and get some more pipe so it would go out farther. Now everythings alright.

It's been a very productive couple of days and everything else is going alright.



-JT

Rodeo

Today was the Airdrie rodeo and I had to go out and support my sister.......yay!  (the italics mean sarcasm) So I watched the Parade which was pretty good, and the rodeo went well. It was a pretty nice day out today, it was hot and then cold and then hot and then cold but overall it was good. I rode my sister's horse a little bit to get it warmed up before the rodeo.

After yesterday's work I have a pretty nice sunburn on my arms and face. My back is also sore from bending over to pick up weeds all day. Worth it. I'm pretty sore so I think I might go in the hot tub later tonight. I still have to get the calves in tonight.

Summer has been pretty good thus far, can't wait for the rest of it!

-JT

Weeding

You have to maintain your farm when you're in agriculture. This includes cutting grass, removing weeds, picking rocks. I did all that today, not at my own farm but at my neighbors;

Today I was working at our neighbors farm. I was kinda volunteered by my mom but hey, money. So I spent my day picking weeds around some bushes and also picking rocks. It went pretty well, it was a good solid day of actual work. I've been riding my horse which is going well and getting the calves ready for the show. Tomorrow is the Airdrie rodeo which I am going to. Ill be watching the Parade and which should be good and interesting.

Not much else going on, just getting into the feel of summer. I'll keep you updated.

-JT

Work

Now that school is over it is summer time and I can relax..... sort of. There's still alot of work to do during the summer. Today I'm going to change the battery on our fencer. The battery is electrifying our fence by the road. The reason for electrifying a fence is so that our livestock doesn't get onto the road. The battery is dead and so I have to go get a fully charged one and replace it so our cows don't get onto the road. There are many of other jobs to do on the farm during this time of year, since it is not cold out we can get alot more done. We have to clean out the barn, mow the grass, water the plants, organize all our equipment. Basically just making sure the whole farm is in order.

We have been working with the animals we are going to take to our Summer cattle show. We have been getting them in the barn and working on growing their hair by dumping water on them and putting the fan on them. We've also been walking our heifers which are still tame from our 4-H year. Mine follows me without hesitating and I think she'll do well in the show ring too. Soon we will be getting a pen system that has fans, sprayers and everything built-in so that will make our operation easier for spraying our calves.

The summer has been going good so far and I am looking forward to our cattle show, it should be a good time.

-JT

Done-ish

Finally, I'm done with my presidential 4-H year. I just finished my last 4-H meeting, which means I should be done. Technically though I'm still president until September, but we only have a couple more events until then. We still have to do the parade for Pete Knight days, and we still have our year end banquet. But I'm pretty much done. It's a relief, but also kinda sad that it's over.

Now that 4-H is pretty much done, it's time to start thinking about summer. I've got Summer Synergy to look forward to, it's a cattle show that's in July in Olds. It should be fun and I'm bringing my yearling heifer and two other calves.

My heifer

My sister's bringing the same and we've started feeding them and working with them. Today we put them in the barn and tied them in a pen. Then we fed them and misted them, misted is just basically spraying water on them. Then we put the big fan on them, this helps them to grow more hair to work with when the show gets here.

The water and fan makes the calves cold so they grow more hair. With more hair you can groom them to make them look thicker and longer. We're going to do this until the show comes so by then they should have lots of hair.

That's all for now

-JT

Final Safety Video!!



4-H on Parade

I haven't blogged in a while because of 4-H on Parade. For those who don't know, it is much like achievement day except with many other clubs from around the Calgary area. It was lots of fun and I took my steer, heifer, and cow/calf project. I didn't take my 3 year old because her calf is still very small and it just means less work for me. It went pretty well and we had lots of fun.

Showing

I'm happy with how my steer did, he came in 5th in his class which wasn't bad. I got $2.40 /lb for him in the sale, he weighed 1098lbs so I got around $2600. It was a pretty good weekend I'd say. Everyone in my club does this every year; they buy a calf at the beginning, raise it, and sell it at the end. It's a good experience and you gain lots of skills.

Fitting before the show.

Almost every year the 4-H on Parade committee comes up with something fun we do on Saturday night. This year we did a tug-of-war, the maximum for a team was 10 people so our club split into 2 teams. At the  beginning everyone was kind of skeptical about how fun it was going to be, but in the end everyone had a blast. We started and both our teams won their first game, we were happy as well as a little bit surprised. We kept playing and having fun and our confidence and celebrations increased. By the end both of our clubs were left and we had to face each other, although my team didn't win I was very proud that our club won gold and silver. It was lots of fun and I hope to do it again next year.

My Team

My Club

Overall, I enjoyed my presidential 4-H on Parade.

-JT

NEXT SAFETY VID!

Vaccination & Tattooing

All calves need to be vaccinated. It helps prevent them from getting sick and helps build up their immune system. We had to run all the calves through the chute system and give them shots and tattoo them. Tattooing is a means of identification we put a tattoo gun in their ear and they each get different letters based on their ear tag. Tattooing is also for registration, whenever you go to a show they check your tattoo so that they can make sure it's the animal you registered. Another way of identification is by branding; we don't brand because in our opinion it takes away from the overall look of the animal. When you tattoo you have to use a tattoo paste; it helps to read the tattoo. One setback: it's green, and it gets all over your hands and is really hard to get out.

3rd Safety Video!!!!

-JT

Colt

This week I have been riding my horse more and she's been doing pretty good, considering she just recently had a baby. He is adorable and he is really energetic and a little bit shy. My horse Splash was usually pretty protective of him and wouldn't let anyone near him. But now she'll go and eat and let him stay by himself a little more. So when we saddled her she was alright about it.

So I went riding and we let the baby in the riding arena with the other horses and he followed his mom around while I rode. He did well and so did she. Then the baby would follow around my sister's horse which was kinda funny because when he was first born he wouldn't go near her.

Tonight me and my sister went riding again and we played a fun game of horseback tag. Which is obviously just like normal tag but on horses... Yeah all in all my horse is doing good.

Heres my next safety video !!!  

-JT

Achievement Day

So we had our club's Achievement Day on Saturday and it went alright. Achievement day is the day when all the members of our club bring all their projects out and we showcase them. Then a judge picks the best animals and then we get cool awards. I did alright, my heifer came in 3rd and my 3 year old came in 2nd. Overall it was a good day and I'm glad it's over. It took a lot of work to get all my projects ready.

Now on to new business. I did some farm safety videos a while back and they are finally all edited together. It's all about Personal Protective Equipment and how to choose the right kind. I'll link you up each time I blog.

Click HERE to view my first video!

More Washin...

Well I washed my cows again tonight. This time I washed my 3 year old 4-H project and her calf. He is really cute but he's missing a lot of his hair. He has bald patches all over his body. This is most likely due to all the medicine we gave him when he was born. He wasn't very healthy and probably had scours. So we helped him by feeding him by bottle everyday because he was to weak to drink by himself. He finally pulled through which I was very thankful for.

For anyone who was unclear about what the phrase Safety Up! means, it is basically a phrase that means "Be Safe" or "Be Careful". So take the correct precautions especially around livestock or machinery on the farm.

-JT

Calves

So Grooming Day went well, I got my steer and heifer all groomed and got their pictures taken. Yesterday I was working on washing my cow-calf project. My cow took a really long time because she is BIG she took a long time to wash and dry. Then I worked on my calf who is really cute, and I got him looking all pretty. He hasn't been washed before and he didn't really enjoy it, he kept moving around when I was trying to wash him.

And the fun part was trying to clip him, he didn't enjoy it so much at first but then he didn't really mind after a while. You always have to be really careful when clipping animals because they may try to kick you in the hand... that's why you should always Safety Up!

Speaking of calves, calving is one of the busiest times in the year for a farmer. Sometimes you have to get up at like 2:00 in the morning to go out and help a cow with calving. If the cow is having real trouble with the calf (this happens often with yearlings because they've never calved before) you may have to pull it. You have to wrap chains around it's front legs and pull it out of the cow. Our calving season is really early compared to other farms; we start calving in early January and sometimes even late December. Other farms may not start their calving until March or April. So that's calving, it's a hard process that we have to do for every single cow in the herd.

That's all and don't forget,  Safety Up!

-JT

Grooming

Today, I groomed my steer to get him all ready for Grooming day tomorrow. First I had to wash him, he is white and extremely easy to get dirty. After he was all clean and sparkly I had to blow him off. I had to get him nice and dry so that I could clip him. My uncle came out to help me and gave me some good tips on how to clip my animal. After all that he was looking really clean and handsome. I have to do this to every one of my animals in order to get them ready for shows. It is a very long process and after much practice I have become a pretty good groomer.

This is my steer after all the cleaning and clipping.

He looks really good and I'm probably going to have to do the same to my heifer later on today.

-JT

The Farm

Alright, I have started this blog in order to inform people about agriculture and how important it is.I live on a farm with my family and we do many different things on the farm. I am going to blog about what I do on the farm and how this will affect me. Some people don't know what it's like to live on a farm so this blog will help to spread knowledge of farm life.

-JT